As for progress with Eternal Memories, it’s going to be slower than originally expected. Let’s just say that universities like to suck away VN productivity. (Progress on Witch Apprentice was/is slow as well, ungh…)

It seems that I’ve broken the 120k mark in Eternal Memories, but that’s not really big news. The big news is that, I’m implementing point based events in one of the paths! (I might include points in some of the other ones too.)

No, I wasn’t using points before. I was just using True and False statements.

Statistics:

The game contains 12,832 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 121,316 words,
for an average of 9.5 words per screen.
The game contains 33 menus.

Anyway, an unrelated note, this is to all you spambots out there!

I read all of your posts, even if I don’t understand or respond to them, and even if I mark them as spam. :’) *

Well, it seems that for the first time since I hit that block, I’ve been able to write natural dialogue again. I ended up wimping out of the editing though, which just means more pain down the road. Odds are, I’ll be editing more when classes start, and they’re starting soon.

It seems like I’ve got under an month until I’ll have less time for writing, but that also means that I’ll be less likely to burn myself out writing, which, I suppose, is a good thing. Besides, more human interaction should give me more fuel for writing, or something. Yeah, I’m pretty much just excited, I guess.

So, here’s where we’re at for Eternal Memories:

Statistics:

The game contains 12,286 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 116,003 words,
for an average of 9.4 words per screen.
The game contains 32 menus.

I don’t think I’ll be taking as fast of a pace with the writing for the rest of the summer as I had at the beginning though.

I guess I’ll also take this chance to mention that we’re still hosting sites and games on vnovel.com, so if you’ve got a game that you’d like to get mirrored, just contact me. Also, if you’re looking for hosting for your site, or if you want a vnovel subdomain, I should be able to set you up.

I finally figured out the problem though: Although I know where I’m going, I’m out of ideas of what to write.

When it comes to writing, it’s important to have a plan. If you’re writing a “day,” you want to know what you’re writing. Knowing what things to write about makes the writing go quicker (or more accurately, it makes it “go”).

It seems that I’ve exhausted my plans though. I can’t really write dialogue between my characters at the moment, and I don’t know what’s happening. It seems that I’m currently experiencing “burnout.”

Because of this, I’m taking a break from writing. I’m planning on editing and playing some VNs. It’s actually been a while since I’ve let myself do that. I think the editing will give me some ideas, and I really do need to refresh my memory on what’s happened so far.

Editing for EM starts with the stats like this:

Statistics:

The game contains 11,995 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 112,998 words,
for an average of 9.4 words per screen.
The game contains 32 menus.

This has been a time of good news, bad news, and things in between for me. I’ve been at Comic-Con this week (Yay!) The problem is that as a result, I’ve gotten about three hours of sleep each day, and haven’t been able to write anything (I’m behind my word goal! Noooooo!!!)

I figure I’d spend the time to mention some things that’ve happened. First off…

Wait… what did they say?

Oh, that’s right! They were saying that the world was ending and all that. It was pretty strange. I guess they thought us Comic-Con people need saving…

Moving on….

They really did have those cat ears that everyone was talking about! I was pretty tempted to buy some, but I wasn’t interested in spending an arm and a leg on them, even though they’re probably worth that much, considering the technology.

The best news, however, has nothing to do with Comic-Con… Well, sort of. It’s not directly related. Like with Comic-Con though, I’ve got mixed feelings about this… (No, it’s not Eternal Memories related at all)

From my previous post about a certain shirt, you all may have guessed that I’m a fan of a certain show… especially one character…

That’s right! YuruYuri CDs! The limited edition versions came with cards inside for Yui and Kyoko, some of which were signed by the Japanese voice actors! You’ll notice that I ordered two. You’ll also notice that one of them happens to be signed. Yes, it’s Kyoko. She’s actually the most popular character in the show, according to polls. I had really been hoping to get a Yui card signed by Minami Tsuda though. Technically, I got the better one though. I’m very glad that I didn’t end up shelling out all that money for two of them and not getting either signed though! I really lucked out!

Alright, so that’s what’s been happening. As you can tell, I got Photoshop recently, so I’ve been having fun with it, sticking bars in front of people’s faces to protect them! It’s for protection!

Alright, one last note. If you want hosting or hosting and a subdomain for a site related to visual novels, please check out the details at vnovel.com and shoot me a PM on LSF or something! I’ve been getting requests for a few subdomains recently, and some of you may have noticed some of the sites by now.

I guess that’s it for me for today. I’ve still got to get back to Comic-Con in a few hours, after I get a bit of sleep!

The game contains 8,574 screens of dialogue.
These screens contain a total of 82,183 words,
for an average of 9.6 words per screen.
The game contains 28 menus.

Yup. Eternal Memories broke the 70k and 80k marks. What else? Well, for the first times, the paths have really divulged. That makes writing a bit easier, and I’ve been finding that I can write 2k an hour! It hasn’t all been easy though. XD

I’ve set some pretty ambitious writing goals this summer, so I should get a lot done. 100k feels like it’s just around the corner! (And yet the story itself is far from done)

Recently, I’ve been having trouble with my computer overheating… but I’ll be getting a new one soon. Well… it’s not soon enough, but it’s soon.

With all this writing though… I’m facing editing with increasing dread…

Well, I just recently hit the 60k mark on words for Eternal Memories. It’s also the summer, so I plan on pounding out writing. I’ve set a goal of 2,000 words every day, which isn’t easy… We’ll see how successful I end up being.

Anyway, 60k isn’t really much of a milestone (the real milestone will be 100k) but I’m going to use it to justify something else.

That’s right! I got myself one of these! I’m planning on wearing it to Comic-Con San Diego (Quite possibly the only place I can wear it without getting stoned…)

Sure, I bought it before I thought about celebrating 60k words, but that doesn’t matter!

Katawa Shoujo’s release was certainly impressive. It did an excellent job marketing, and was fairly decent. Why does it anger me?

Well… There’ve been a lot of things popping up that exclaim that they’re “inspired by Katawa Shoujo!” They vary from decent sounding things (very rare, in fact, I can’t think of any off the top of my head) to almost direct carbon copies of KS (hey, I know, let’s stick in 18+ content, have filtered photo backgrounds, heroines with some sort of disability, set it in Japan, make it free, get a bunch of writers, get a bunch of artists, etc. Story? I have no idea! Let’s just do this thing!)

Alright, let’s make some things clear:

The KS model for creating VNs is not optimal. There were a lot of issues that came up, and the release of the game was delayed for quite a while. That’s not what angers be though.

What angers me? Well, that would be that it’s KATAWA SHOUJO that’s inspiring them. KS? There are much, MUCH better games than KS. That so many games should be “inspired by KS” instead of “inspired by Clannad” or “inspired by [insert other VN of merit]” makes me feel like crying…

Well, now that that flaming’s out of the way… Eternal Memories stuff, eh?

School’s finally ending for me, so I should have time over the summer to write. Art is going at varying paces. It’s an unofficial goal to get the website up by the end of summer break. We’ll see how that goes XD

I’ve been sick recently, so hopefully I’ll get better, because not is not the optimal time to write. I think that made itself apparent in the latest game I made:

It’s a slice of life story about a water droplet. I made if for one of my classes. It was… a painful process… Being sick near the end of writing, some of that may have carried over. That being said, I’m not touching the thing again. It was EVIL! Ah, and no, it’s not a HellPanda game, it’s just something I threw together for a class. Definitely not my proudest work…

Anyway, if you haven’t heard… my latest policy:

“All my games will have a redhead. Period.”

And so they shall!

Time to sulk away and curl in a corner to sleep, and hopefully get over this cold.